California Governor Gavin Newsom says Donald Trump is stepping toward authoritarianism with his riot measures

The relationship between the leader of the United States and the country’s most populous state reached a near-breaking point as US President Donald Trump said that he thought California Governor Gavin Newsom should be arrested, a claim that Newsom described as an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism.

The back-and-forth came as Mr Trump stepped up the military’s presence on the streets of Los Angeles, against Mr Newsom’s will, as the two men traded recriminations.

Mr Trump repeatedly ridiculed Mr Newsom, a Democrat, saying that he is “grossly incompetent” and had done “a terrible job.” Asked about a threat made by his border czar Tom Homan to arrest the governor, Mr Trump said, “I would do it if I were Tom.”

“I think it’s great,” Mr Trump added, without specifying any alleged criminal wrongdoing or charges. “Gavin likes the publicity, but I think it would be a great thing.”

“That’s an American president in 2025, threatening a political opponent who happens to be a sitting governor,” Mr Newsom said. “That’s not with precedent in modern times. That’s what we see around the globe in authoritarian regimes.”

Mr Newsom’s comments reflected a broader frustration for Democratic leaders, who have been unable to counter what they see as an escalation of Trump’s antidemocratic actions in his emboldened second term.

Mr Newsom has tried all methods: He was a face of the resistance in the first term and a welcoming greeter during Trump’s initial visit to California in his second term. All the while, he continued suing Mr Trump, while keeping up a cordial back-channel relationship.

On Monday, he sounded like he was at his end with Mr Trump, calling him “unrestrained” and “unhinged.”

“Trump is a very different president than his first foray in office,” Mr Newsom said Monday, local time.

“You’ve seen that as it relates to how he has completely obliterated any oversight from Congress; how he seeks to obliterate oversight from the judicial branch by threatening impeachment of judges and running up to the edge as it relates to court orders.”

The newest break in the historically tumultuous relationship between Mr Newsom and Mr Trump unfolded over a chaotic 72-hour period that began with raids by federal immigration officials in Los Angeles on Friday that led to the arrests of 44 people, including two people whom state officials believe to be minors.

Mr Trump, who had arrived at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, for the weekend, left a message for Mr Newsom on his phone Friday night. The two had spoken intermittently since Mr Trump’s inauguration, including during a meeting in the Oval Office in February as Mr Newsom sought tens of billions of dollars in Federal funding to help LA rebuild after the January wildfires.

While they sparred publicly, their interactions in private during both Trump terms were more productive.

On Friday, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests had triggered protests, with the Los Angeles Police Department reporting that agitators had hurled chunks of concrete at law enforcement officers. The Democratic governor assumed that was why Mr Trump was calling.

He was hoping to reassure him when they spoke after 1:30am Eastern time that state and local officials had protests under control.

But he could scarcely get in a word. Mr Trump talked about trivial subjects, according to people familiar with the call who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Mr Newsom unsuccessfully tried to steer the President toward serious subjects, including reports that the administration was preparing to terminate California’s Federal funding.

In an interview Monday, Mr Newsom said Mr Trump was “gracious” but never warned that he was about to federalise the National Guard, as the president later claimed, and never asked about the law enforcement response to that night’s protests.

Risking complaints from some Democrats that he had been too accommodating, the California Governor had been restrained in the months since inauguration, avoiding personal attacks.

But by Sunday, when Mr Newsom arrived in Los Angeles, crowds of protesters in the city’s downtown had swelled to thousands. California Highway Patrol officers under Mr Newsom’s command were arresting people who had blocked the southbound lanes of the 101 Freeway, a major artery through the city, and throwing objects at local law enforcement officers as several Waymo vehicles were set on fire.

The gripping and chaotic scene in a Democratic-run city was, in Mr Newsom’s view, the kind of made-for-television crisis that Mr Trump had always hoped to manufacture. Mr Newsom, who blamed Trump for the escalation, said Sunday on social media that Mr Trump’s actions had diverged into those of “a dictator, not a President.”

“This is an act of recklessness that quite literally puts people’s lives at risk,” Newsom said of Trump’s decision to federalise the National Guard.

From Mr Trump’s perspective, the situation in Los Angeles County had gotten out of control - leaving him no choice but to step in. A White House official briefed on the administration’s response to the protests, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that the President had hoped that calling Mr Newsom would compel him to take more aggressive law enforcement action - something Mr Trump stressed in the phone call, the official insisted.

Throughout Saturday, according to White House officials, the president and his advisers were being briefed about what was happening on the ground - and watching provocative images on social media and television. They saw images of agents with lacerations, and of rocks being thrown at law enforcement vehicles.

By around 9pm, Mr Trump had signed a memorandum authorising the National Guard. That decision was announced in the early evening in Los Angeles, a time that a White House official said was designed to deter further protests that evening.

“You watch the same clips as I did. Cars burning all over the place, people rioting,” Mr Trump said on Monday afternoon.

He cast himself as the saviour of the state, and said he had no choice but to intervene, mocking those who disagreed as “politically correct.”

“If we didn’t do the job, that place would be burning down, just like the houses burned down,” he said, comparing it to other protests like those in Minneapolis in the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing.

“There’s so many different places where we let it burn. We want to be politically correct. We want it to be nice. We want to be nice to the criminal. And what you’re doing is destroying the fabric of our life in this country.”

He said that he should be credited.

“And I think Gavin, in his own way, is probably happy I got involved,” Trump said.

Later on Monday, a senior administration official said that about 700 active-duty U.S. Marines would be deployed from Camp Pendleton to Los Angeles on Monday night “in light of increased threats to federal officers and federal buildings.” Mr Newsom called the act “un-American.”

“U.S. Marines have served honorably across multiple wars in defense of democracy. They are heroes,” Mr Newsom wrote on X. “They shouldn’t be deployed on American soil facing their own countrymen to fulfill the deranged fantasy of a dictatorial President.”

While Mr Trump expressed support for arresting Mr Newsom, he did not have an explanation for what crime he thinks the governor committed.

“I think his primary crime is running for governor, because he’s done such a bad job,” he said. “What he’s done to that state is like what (Joe) Biden did to this country. And, that’s pretty bad.”

White House officials later suggested Mr Trump was serious about his threats to have Mr Newsom arrested.

“No one, regardless of status as elected official is above the law,” a White House official said. “If Gavin Newsom is obstructing Federal law enforcement, he may face consequences.”

The relationship between Mr Newsom and Mr Trump, never strong, has long seemed headed this way, according to observers.

“This is a symbiotic relationship right now,” said David Axelrod, a former adviser to Barack Obama, noting that both Mr Trump and Mr Newsom are “improvisational politicians who are habitually trying to read the room.”

“But at the end of the day, Newsom clearly wants to run for president. And to be president, he has to be the Democratic nominee,” Mr Axelrod said.

“And when this kind of provocation takes place - when the President of the United States is sending Marines to L.A. - yeah, you damn well better have something to say.”

Mr Newsom said he would have a hard time keeping up the cordiality.

“He just threatened my arrest. One would assume, or presume, that’s the point of no return,” Newsom said.

“I’m constitutionally capable of working with people, even those that call for my arrest. So I remain resolved in that respect, as I remain resolved to have the backs of kids, whose lives are being threatened by his authoritarian tendencies.”